Learning to Teach Inclusively OER Videos in Digital Media

At the University of Wolverhampton under the Open Educational Resources Programme, jointly supported by JISC and the HEA, we are developing a multi-media open access module for HE staff - Learning to Teach Inclusively. As part of the project we are sharing series of video clips. Reflexivity in academic practice, requires us to be conscious of our own positions, beliefs and assumptions. In the classroom, reflexivity is about being aware of the influence of our own identities on our practice and on student learning. It is being mindful that our materials, resources, anecdotes, etc. not only relate to the subject, but that they are also sensitive to the diversity of the students. Being sensitive to the diversity of the students in the group requires flexibility and adaptability in the immediate learning situation but it also requires us to anticipate and prepare for a range of diverse requirements at the planning stage. \ud \ud There are two sets of video clips I this collection. The first set is taken from a classroom session that illustrates reflexive, responsive, sensitive and anticipatory practice. The second set of clips are taken from a post session discussion between the students, the teacher and support workers in this session on the issues of working with culturally and linguistically diverse groups. \ud \ud The classroom session was from a module in Video and Film Production designed to raise students’ awareness of accessibility issues experienced by blind TV, film and video audiences. The activities have been crafted in a way that enables all students to engage and participate fully. The task set is to create an audio description of a section of film for blind audiences. Students are required to listen to the opening of a film without seeing it, and to describe in writing what they hear. This simulates for sighted students what a blind audience might experience. They are then shown the film and, with the benefit of vision, they are then asked to revise their written descriptions in groups. Finally, selected groups read their audio descriptions aloud in time with the action as the film is playing. \ud \ud This task requires heightened observation and listening. It is particularly challenging for one of the groups. One of the four students in this group is Deaf and two others are international students whose first language is not English. The teacher anticipates that the Deaf student (Jack) will need a reasonable adjustment (a transcript of the dialogue from the film) in order to participate fully in the exercise. She also liaises with the note taker and British Sign Language interpreter in advance of the session so they can think about how they can best facilitate Jack during this activity. \ud \ud Clips 01 to 04 from the classroom session set the scene for this activity and show the first stages of students working independently and as a whole group. How effective and inclusive are the adjustments for Jack? In the second stage of the activity small groups of students are creating an audio description for the first 5 minutes of the movie. During this stage the teacher facilitates the groups but she notices that some members of one of the groups seem a little quiet and withdrawn (see clip 05 from the classroom session). How effective is the teacher’s intervention? What would you do here to encourage greater interaction between students? What do you notice about her body language? The remaining clips from this session (07 & 08) show the ways in which the teacher facilitates the co construction of meaning within a small group (note here her physical position and her use of questions to encourage thinking rather than leading or telling). The final clip shows the culmination of the activity in a plenary where students share their scripts for open discussion and critique. The students appear at ease with each other and comfortable with articulating their ideas publically, giving and receiving feedback.\ud \ud \ud In the second set of clips the teacher, support staff and students reflect on this task and the issues it raised for them in their respective roles. Issues covered in this discussion include benefits and challenges of working in culturally and linguistically diverse groups, Deaf awareness, teacher development, understanding different cultural norms, coordinating and interaction between diverse groups. \ud \ud \ud Project web-site – www.wlv.ac.uk/teachinclusively e-mail: oer@wlv.ac.uk Videos are in .mp4 format (H.264 compression) and are playable with most media players. If you have any problems with the playback we recommend free open source VLC media player – www.videolan.org or all of our published videos can be viewed online on www.vimeo.com/oer/videos in your browser. Please contact us if you need any help oer@wlv.ac.uk , or fill in Problem Report form - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEg4a1h6T0ZzenRkVnlIcW1iYXpadHc6M